Bombings in Amman

[MissQueenie]

Dear Friends,

Some of you may know that I worked for a time as a member of an archaeological research project in the Kingdom of Jordan. Our research center -- ACOR (American Center for Oriental Research) is located in the capital city of Amman, and our research site is across the country, in the south near Israel. I made a great deal of friends during my time there -- fellow archaeologists from a variety of countries, Palestinian refugees, Bedouin, Jordanian natives. Wednesday night, three suicide bombs were detonated in three American owned hotels, killing scores of people (63 the last time I checked), and wounding over 100. One of the bombers set his bomb off in the middle of a Jordanian couple's wedding reception of 300 people.

I was shocked and grieved by the news, and my heart goes out to the familes of those killed and wounded in the attacks. My friends and I are praying for a close friend, a post graduate student from my university, who has been studying at ACOR this year. We're all in shock -- until now, we'd been willing and able to work in what had been a place of relative safety and tranquility in a war-torn area of the world. This has us wondering what the face of near eastern archaeology will look like now, and how long it will be before we are allowed to go back.

~ Q.

 

[Rigby Reardon]

I'm sorry for this to have entered your life.

There are places we hold in our hearts that will never change there, even if they change in the world. But when they do change in the real world, it always feels like those places just moved a little farther away, like they'll be just that much harder to return to someday.

I'm hoping you never see those places removed from you completely.

I hope your friends are found to be safe.

J

 

[Biltmore Bob]

Sorry, Miss Queenie...

I lost some friends in the Marine Barracks bombing in Beiruit.

 

[Mycroft]

I am really sorry for all of your losses, their familiess will be in my prayers.

 

[MissQueenie]

Thank you.

Thank you all for your words of comfort and support -- it breaks my heart to think of how deeply people in other places in the world suffer. There seems to be so little reason for any of it. The riots in Paris are making me sad too. I just wish life could be fair and safe for everyone, you know?

Anyway, thank you all so much.

~ Queenie.